Do I really got this?

I can handle a fair amount.
I’ve learned fairly quickly how to live side by side with my bipolar child.
I can handle the hyper cycle, usually I take the anger with a grain of salt.
I’m used to the irritable boy who shows up.
One thing I just can’t handle is when the utter despair hits.
And not because it tries my patience, but because it breaks my heart.
Typically when the day starts with a stomach ache, I know what’s coming.
But I don’t care how many times you’ve held them as they crash, you can never be prepared or used to it.
I know when tears spill from his eyes, it’s real. Not a typical rapid cycle, but a depression so great he’s paralysed by it, and the irrational fears it brings.

The constant rocking, a reminder of the anxiety built up.

And no I can’t handle it. I suck at handling it.

When he wants to be left alone to work through it, to grasp whatever composure he can, to save himself the shame as he says, I can’t.

I talk, I soothe, I hold.

But no I don’t leave him alone. Not because I have to some how get him to school, but for fear.
The hardest days are days I have to trust in other’s to protect him. The days (the fifth day of school being one) I can’t give him the “mental health” day, I so desperately want to.
Because you see, I want him to learn it will pass it will be OK.
There are times he stays, because he just simply cannot compose and push through. Those are the days I hold him a little bit tighter.

As I sit on pins and needles all day, hoping he fairs OK, I wonder,
Do I really got this?

2 Responses to “Do I really got this?”

You got this mama. Kudos to you for being by his side. You are allowed to be stressed by it too. Sometimes support people take on a lot but don’t get the credit. If my mom did what you are doing instead of ignoring it, I don’t think I would have had to learn all my healthy coping skills in my 30s